July 2nd. The order was to assemble at the Hospital at eight a.m. I got there at 8:20 and everything was stirring. There is really nothing for the majority of the officers to do. Rolfe Floyd is the busy one. The regular Army men, Major Hansell in charge, and his Adjutant, Captain Trinder, seem most efficient. They have really handled the whole affair wonderfully, never once getting excited and every one asking them hundreds of foolish questions. The amateur soldier is really a horrible thing. No one can appreciate the difference between military and civil life who has not tried them both.
The enlisted men leave on sight-seeing coaches at 9:30, after a preliminary line-up in the courtyard, and cheers for Colonel Mackay and every one connected with the outfit. The officers get down as best they can, so I go down in Dr. Dowd's motor with Floyd, arriving on the pier at ten a.m.
The "Lapland" has been painted war gray and is fitted with a new mine-sweeping device, of which more later. There was quite a crowd of people down there to see us off. Mrs. Vanderbilt, Clarence Mackay,—and dozens of others whom I do not know. Except for the uniforms and the gray paint on the ship, it seems just like a summer vacation trip. Our baggage is wonderfully handled and everything put on board in the same manner as in peace times. We are supposed to sail at twelve sharp. The heat is intolerable. Our staterooms are fine; No. 33, upper deck room. My lot was first cast with the Chaplain, but I told him McWilliams and I were old Spanish War veterans, and so he let McWilliams bunk with me.
At one o'clock we are still at the pier. Two hundred and sixty-five, or some such number, of cots have not appeared and our indefatigable Quartermaster Ward will not leave without them, so sweat on, and the poor devils who came down to the pier wait on!
About three thirty the cots are stowed on board, the whistle sounds long blasts, the hawsers are cast off, and the thud of the great engines begins. The crowd rush down to the end of the pier, where many have waited since nine thirty in the morning apparently without any lunch. They must be nearly dead.
The thrill of other voyages comes back so vividly to my mind as the great ship slowly warps out into mid-channel, but I am alone now and all is so different, yet it is hard to realize it and I cannot help feeling it must be a great big holiday—the harbor seems so bright, gay and peaceful. We steam at a snail's pace down the bay, and in front of the Battery the ship seems to float for ten minutes or so, the engines just turning over. Officers, nurses and men gaze on the tall buildings as if they were things of stupendous beauty. Each man seems to identify some building that he knows about, or has worked in. I know none of them, and try to locate the Barclay Building, but cannot.
Finally we slip by the Battery, Governors Island and into the Lower Bay. The waters seem crowded with shipping, the Dutch and English flags being especially in evidence. There is one converted German steamer flying the American flag. The "Vaterland" was lying quietly at her pier.
The glasses Mr. Bird gave me were a source of great fun in trying to pick out the details of the ships. They practically all had stern guns, and the Dutch ships had great spears of national colors all over their sides. Off Tompkinsville, or rather St. George's, Staten Island, we passed the Dreadnought "Kansas," her decks crowded with jackies in white duck. She looked awfully spick and span.
Just below Tompkinsville we went through the opening in the net. One could see distinctly the large buoys that marked its position, and the small blocks that separated it. At the opening a Monitor lay anchored and there were several motor-boats, of about forty to sixty feet long, with big markings of "S.P. No. so and so." It was the first real realization of war I had felt, and it gave one quite a little thrill.
Steaming more rapidly down the channel now and passing numerous tugboats apparently commandeered for patrol duty. Finally the pilot boat comes in sight and the pilot slips down the side into the little rowboat. Full steam ahead is given and we at last feel the motion of the long Atlantic sweep.